Category: Places

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Aguila de Osa Arrival

Carlos Welcomes Me at Dock
With a Baby Boa Constrictor
Aguila de Osa Lodge, Drake Bay, Costa Rica
Great flight down with some cool shots out the window of our little Sansa plane. Got detoured by way of Puerto Jimenez so made it even more interesting! 4WD taxi from plane down dirt roads, fording streams to a port where I got a boat from my lodge for the rest of my delivery. I had to remove shoes and wade barefoot through the tide to the boat. I’ve set up room, explored grounds, hiked one trail, taken lots of photos, had lunch and will soon go for appetizers before dinner with beautiful vista of Drake Bay. 
I will limit the blog to one photo per day because of very slow internet connection and I was slowed some more for this post with computer problem (or my computer ignorance problem). . .   🙂  You who are regular readers will be glad I’m limited to one photo a post! Because I do get carried away with a lot of photos sometimes! But keep watching for my one photo a day!

About Corcovado National Park (Wikipedia)  and  About Drake Bay (Wikipedia)


And Aguila de Osa Inn

My TRIPS Photo Gallery on this Drake Bay Trip

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Pre-parade Dancing is Most Colorful!

In some ways this was my favorite part of the parade today because it was so colorful and new! We did not have this during the last two years’ parades. I love latin music and dance and the color! Nice!
Music is the best cure for a sorrowing mind.
Latin Proverb
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2017 Atenas Oxcart Parade

Just a sample of nearly 300 cart entries:

Most cart are filled with family members!
Atenas, Costa Rica

Errrrrr, hmmmmm, son, this is an oxcart parade!
Kids pushing their limits everywhere! 🙂
And here, people just say “¡Pura Vida!”

And the line goes on and on!
Three years of these and I’ve had enough, leaving early for lunch!
They used to all be so unique, now they all look the same! 🙂

Hey! You need to get in the spirit of the parade!
Cowboy hats and belts!

As with all fiestas here, the Central Park is filled with venders selling
everything from food to arts & crafts and even kitchen utensils!
I had a caramel-filled churro and a Churchill to drink. See below.

Costa Rica Churchill, is sort of a drink and a dessert found in lots of fiestas across the country, but mainly associated with Punterenas, the port city on the Pacific. Click the title to read an article about them and started in my birth year, 1940. Mine here was a little different than the one he describes. It was about 1/3 vanilla ice cream, 1/3 red snow cone (strawberry I think), and 1/3 canned fruit cocktail, not the fresh fruit in the article. Needless to say, Ticos love sugar! Me too! Like, would you ever find a churro in Mexico that is relleno with caramel? Costa Rica is just a sweeter place!  🙂

And little town kiddie thrills! A bouncy house too!

Blog Post on 2016 Atenas Oxcart Parade  some of my favorite photos made last year
Photo gallery of past oxcart parades in Atenas

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Orange Yellow Haiku & Next Week Plans

Still playing around with Haiku!  And my garden!   🙂  
-o-
Tomorrow is the annual oxcart parade in Atenas. I plan to be there again and post a few photos from it tomorrow night.

-o-

http://www.greentiquehotels.com/

NEXT WEEK:
Then Monday morning I plan to take off for Corcovado National Park (largest rainforest preserve in Central America) & Drake Bay for 6 days of nature adventure & photography. I will have three trips into the park and one to an island out in this bay of the Pacific. I’m ready!

And I’m staying in what looks like a really nice lodge, Aguila de Osa Rainforest Lodge with all meals included and all trips/guides pre-scheduled. This is going to be one of my better trips!  🙂  Boat & hiking in the rainforest, explore a little tropical island, snorkle in the Pacific, and hopefully photograph a lot of birds!   🙂  I fly down.

http://www.aguiladeosa.com/
¡Pura Vida!
Charlie Doggett
Retired in Costa Rica!
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Chromatic Ginger Haiku

Red Ginger flower
My Garden, Atenas, Costa Rica

Count it a coincidence that my ex-wife’s nickname was “Ginger.” She died last summer of cancer in Gatesville, Texas. And that she too was chromatically colorful in her own way.  🙂

Photo Gallery of My Home Garden
Link to post About Ginger & Jason just before she died.  
And the announcement of her death: Ginger Is Gone
Some may call it poetic justice that my garden has many of two kinds of flowers called “Ginger,” this Red Ginger and a yellow Shampoo Ginger flower. Only fellow divorcees can understand all the many mixed feelings when something reminds you of your ex, especially after her death. Then life goes on!
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This Morning in the Garden

White-winged Dove
In My Garden, Atenas, Costa Rica

Blue-gray Tanager 
 In My Garden, Atenas, Costa Rica

In My Garden, Atenas, Costa Rica

In My Garden, Atenas, Costa Rica

In My Garden, Atenas, Costa Rica

In My Garden, Atenas, Costa Rica

In My Garden, Atenas, Costa Rica

In My Garden, Atenas, Costa Rica

In My Garden, Atenas, Costa Rica

One of my favorite things to do is to sleep until I wake up, shower, eat a liesurely breakfast on my terrace admiring flowers and the visiting birds. So, after a busy, early, hard day hiking yesterday, I had one of my relaxed mornings today (23rd) and recorded part of it in the above photos. There were other birds and more flowers, but this is a good sample for today.

Enjoying Retirement in Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!
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El Camino de Costa Rica HIKE

Earth Day 2017

Today I joined a group of supporters of the new coast to coast trail called
El Camino de Costa Rica
Hiking an 11 km section, with 8 km uphill! Very difficult.

One of many vistas along the trail
El Camino de Costa Rica

It was all on roads, mostly gravel
El Camino de Costa Rica

One of the many very steep uphill climbs (2 dropped out early)
El Camino de Costa Rica

We cossed and followed several streams
El Camino de Costa Rica

Passed a continous flow of small, poor farm houses
El Camino de Costa Rica

Had breakfast in a little rural Soda
El Camino de Costa Rica

And our after-hike lunch at a rural trout farm restaurant
El Camino de Costa Rica

Enough participated to fill a tourist bus!
El Camino de Costa Rica

One more vista, this near end of the hike
El Camino de Costa Rica

We did just one small section of a 263 or so km trail coast to coast and as the project proposes, walked through small farms in rural Costa Rica, this one in the Talamanca Mountains west of Cartago, but going through no town. See the video introducing the trail which uses some of my bird photos:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7euE5oQPC8


And if you would like to donate to the development of this trail through “crowd sourcing,” go to the website: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/el-camino-de-costa-rica–3#/
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